Gardening Jill, It's good to see some other ideas on later posts. After reading a lot of posts on Milehighgirl's link it gave me a few ideas as to what caused your tree to take the multi trunk form it now has. Someone suggested that the original graft failed and the rootstock sent up multiple sprouts. That being said you have great rootstock to graft new varieties onto. I would still remove the portion to the left entirely. It looks very weak and will probably remove itself soon anyway. I would keep the two trunks on the right. Is that where the splitting is that you are first talked about? If it is here's how I thought about taking care of that problem. The front trunk with the hole that the birds nest in I would cut down to 6' high cut at a sloping 45% so the water drains away from the two splits.There's no way that the tree can collar all of that wood. So just paint it with an outdoor paint. Just like any wood you would need to do that on a regular basis to keep rot out. In the meantime you have a great root stock to work from. You have removed the weight from the trunk that's causing the split. Next year you could also remove the other side if you want to lower it as well. It's a multi year project. In bonsai culture they use thread grafting to insert branches any where on the trunk that they need them. This is done by drilling a hole through the trunk and threading a branch through the hole. If you use this principle you can get new scions to grow on the now lower trunk. You wouldn't have to drill all the way through to graft your new type of pear. I've not done any grafting myself so others could help you with that process. Milehighgirl, Please post recent pictures of your pear project tree.

is it still laying there?? any chance at a pic??? it does not surprise me.. that it could leaf out on stored energy ... and yet i am thinking.. you are spot on ... about failure in the heat of the summer ... but of course.. we have no way to know what is underground ... so whether or not the loss of that one root is terminal ... who knows ... stand it back up.. stake it properly.. and see what happens .. or if your personality dictates that it will drive you insane with worry.. get rid of it .... ken

This question would be better asked on the Fruit forum. Rodney Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit & Orchards Forum

th102 now is not the ideal time to prune your tree. Having said that. It will still leaf out and produce fruit if you prune it now. The longer you wait the more sap will be flowing thought the tree and the tree will lose more of its energy due to losing more sap. Keep in mind that pruning while the tree is no longer dormant will be a shock to the tree. Thus it will likely appear to stop the active growing process for 1-3 weeks. Your fruiting and ripening cycle this season will also likely be delayed/slowed by roughly the same amount of time.